The Issues

What happens in Washington, D.C. and in state capitals around the country directly affects your health care and your wallet. America’s Health Insurance Plans presents a strong advocacy voice for our members with government officials and the public. Our goal is to advance a vibrant, private-public health care system, one characterized by consumer choice, product flexibility and innovation.

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Featured Issues

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) will expand access to coverage and take steps toward delivery system reform, but will raise costs and disrupt coverage for individual market customers, employers, and seniors. Tens of millions of Americans will gain access to health insurance, a goal that health plans have long supported. The ACA also includes a number of important consumer protections that many health plans implemented before they were required by law, such as the provision allowing young adults up to the age of 26 to stay on their parents’ policies.

The Affordable Care Act will help millions of people get coverage for the first time, but the new health insurance tax, costly benefit requirements and age rating restrictions will drive up the cost of coverage for many consumers and employers. When this happens, many younger and healthier Americans could decide not to get coverage, which would further drive up costs for everyone else.

More than one-sixth
of the U.S. economy is devoted to health care spending and that percentage
continues to rise every year. Regrettably, our system is not delivering value
commensurate with the estimated $2.7 trillion spent annually on health care. Experts agree that
an estimated 20 to 30 percent of that spending – up
to $800 billion a year – goes to care that is wasteful,
redundant, or inefficient.

Health plans serve tens of millions of Americans through public programs, including Medicaid, Medicare and Medicare Part D. These public-private partnerships afford beneficiaries access to health plans’ comprehensive programs that improve patient care and safety, while providing services in a cost-effective manner that reduces their out-of-pocket costs.

AHIP and its member companies are engaged in a wide variety of activities, programs and research directed at improving the health and health status of their enrolled populations. Health plans and their collaborating partners are developing frameworks for action that emphasize evidence-based care and result in improved patient outcomes, including promoting prevention and health care equity, patient safety, advancements in care delivery, payment reform and quality reporting. The landscape of health and health care continues to evolve, and likewise AHIP member companies are responding with new and innovative approaches to meet the demands for quality patient-centered solutions.

Health insurance companies offer a wide array of products to help individuals and their families access and afford the health care they need while also providing financial protection when unexpected injury or illness arise. More than 200 million Americans receive coverage from private health plans from an employer, from the individual market or through government partnerships. Health plans are actively driving innovations to improve quality for patients and reduce the skyrocketing cost of health care. As the Affordable Care Act takes effect, health plans are working to adapt quickly to minimize disruptions across all markets so consumers can continue to have access to the coverage that they count on.